Organizations in various industries use electronic commerce for communicating business information including purchase order and order supply information. One method for communicating electronic commerce information uses a value added network as a clearing house for messages between organizations. The value added network thereby allows organizations to participate in electronic commerce in an efficient and cost effective manner. Such a value added network provides connectivity for participating organizations and, in general, can receive messages from originator organizations, process the messages, and forward appropriate messages to recipient organizations.
Electronic commerce networks, whether or not based upon a value added architecture, need to be managed to ensure that the network does not go down because of failure of hardware or software elements within the network. This management of network integrity is typically a reactive process of identifying and correcting points of failure after they have occurred. There is little ability to monitor the status of the network in real-time and proactively identify potential problem elements before actual failures occur. The problems of network integrity management are augmented when if network is distributed in nature and has elements in geographically remote locations.